‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ Trailer (w/ English Subs) Battles the Sex Police

By  · Published on August 21st, 2013

It’s not safe for work, but there’s nothing in the new trailer for Blue is the Warmest Color that hints at its NC-17 rating. Some flirtation, romance, a little nude modeling and vicious fighting make it look like a typical mature story, but after it’s powerful debut at Cannes, it’s impossible to escape knowing that it’s a fairly explicit film.

Naturally that’s earned the film from Abdellatif Kechiche starring Lea Seydoux and Adele Exarchopoulos as star cross’d lovers the strongest slap possible from the MPAA. Granted, all it really takes to earn an NC-17 from that august body is to admit that gay people exist in the first place (let alone, gasp, showing them kissing or having sex). It’s a good thing the film and potential fans have found a champion in Jonathan Sehring because according to Variety, the president of Sundance Selects and IFC Films is refusing to recut the film for a cash-friendlier rating.

“The film is first and foremost a film about love, coming of age and passion. We refuse to compromise Kechiche’s vision by trimming the film for an R rating, and we have every confidence that Blue Is the Warmest Color will play in theaters around the country regardless.”

Hear, hear. That’s opposed to, say, The Weinsteins who are cutting movies just because we’re all too dumb to understand them (although I fully recognize that they’ve had their own NC-17 fights in the past). What matters most here is that audiences will get to see a movie that has wowed a lot of people in its original form. Check out the trailer for yourself:

Sidenote: Thanks to MrRiotGrrrl on YouTube for creating sensical English subtitles. Using YouTube’s beta “Translate” feature is the quickest way to make a foreign language film even more confusing. “Samsung in France I hope everything the first plan to clean not so much”! My thoughts exactly.

Blue is the Warmest Color hits theaters October 25th.

Movie stuff at VanityFair, Thrillist, IndieWire, Film School Rejects, and The Broken Projector Podcast@brokenprojector | Writing short stories at Adventitious.